


Behind the Glory Days

by skyfiery



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 14:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15820428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyfiery/pseuds/skyfiery
Summary: A series of flash fiction about the various parts of the whole of Herc Hansen, from why he wears the things he wears to the various interactions he's had with other Rangers during his time in the PPDC.Not updated according to movie/novelization timeline sequence.





	1. Boots

Herc swore that it was by utter luck that he saw those boots online.

It was the golden years of the PPDC Program, and he had simply been a Ranger, with more time on his hands than he would’ve had in the later days. Yes, he was a test pilot for virtually all of the Jaegers that rolled off the assembly line, but with Kaiju attacks still relatively spaced out, he was afforded some downtime.

He remembered watching Mad Max: Fury Road with Chuck and Angela. They had a replay of the 1979 version on TV that preceded Fury Road in the theaters a few months before the Trespasser breached their world and attacked San F rancisco. Chuck had, for some reason, fixated on the boots. Not that the kid was able to fit into them at that time, but the liking for them had stuck.

Herc blew some of his pay on not just one pair but two when his son got accepted into the PPDC, but had never remembered to give a pair to Chuck until his son became his co-pilot.

After their first test Drift in the sim, Chuck had seen those boots in his dad’s mind and harassed Herc until the boots got taken out of storage. They had been dusty but still in pretty good shape, and by whatever luck Herc had accumulated since the Mark 1 Glory Days (he used to snark a little that fighting Kaiju gave him luck points), the boots fit Chuck near perfectly, even if the kid had to grow just a tad into them.

 


	2. Vest

It wasn’t that Herc condoned what he’d seen Scott do while in the Drift. If he had, he wouldn’t have reported his younger brother to the brass in the Program. It was that the Lucky Seven vest had become wearable armor, a reminder that that particular Jaeger was the first that had been his (in a sense) along with a co-pilot. It had been a ride more permanent than the other Jaegers he’d helped to field test.

Lucky Seven was his first. And despite everything, damned if he wouldn’t carry the good times with his brother around with him until the end of the K-war, at least.

 


	3. Tattoo

It’d been a stupid idea that Herc was thankful he’d never had the chance to implement when he was still in the Australian Air Force, considering the design he’d been eyeing. Instead, when he and Scott enlisted in the PPDC, he'd noticed that every Jaeger Bay in each of the Shatterdomes worldwide had the design of a compass painted on a wall.

The choice of each wall was unique to each Shatterdome, but that design was one consistently unique feature that Herc had seen.

Four months into piloting Lucky Seven, he and Scott decided to carry that badge of every Shatterdome with them. After a practice run in Lima, the two Rangers printed out a picture of the compass, disguised themselves as best as they could, and sought out the least seedy tattoo parlor they could find. 

The Hansen brothers agreed - right forearm for Herc, and left for Scott, just as a visual indication of which pilot seat they held in Lucky Seven.

The first time any Shatterdome personnel had seen those newly-inked tattoos was a few weeks later, when the Hansen brothers had to be helped into their circuitry and drive suits. Of course, no one was going to say anything to the Rangers of Lucky Seven, and when the Marshal whose name Herc would much prefer to forget saw the tattoos, it was too late to say anything.

 


End file.
